A. L. Buehrer What I Write and Why

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

On Description

Hello
everyone. Sorry about the lack of action, my access to internet is limited.
However, I’ve decided to try my best to start posting regularly from now on—at
least once a week, I hope. I plan to start a series of posts this week on the
subject of writing. I’ve recently started writing my eighth novel, and in the
process of all that writing, discovered a few things that might be of interest
to other writers. I have very few readers to date, so spread the word that I’ve
started up this series if you like it, or know somebody who might benefit from
it.

Without further ado:

The Art of Description

I’m aware that right now, mainstream authors
generally are looking down on highly descriptive writing. A lot of modern
authors, novelists, and even poets discourage over-description but little is
said about the issue of under-description. I was reading an article in a
writers’ magazine giving something like “The Ten Rules for Success”, written by
some author whom I frankly doubt that I would ever enjoy reading. One of his tips
was to describe your characters as little as possible. What!?!?

In
matters of art, it’s of the essence to work in a way that is natural for you.
If you really feel uncomfortable describing your characters, don’t do it--but
as a general rule for success?There may
be readers who prefer to have a character left entirely to their imagination,
but I’m not one of them, and as a writer...I really, really, want to tell you
what I see.

And they’ll say, “Oh, no! Don’t tell us, show us.” This is usually good advice, but spending an entire book implying what a character looks like is
a waste of time. I use my characters’ physical appearances to imply other
things. I’m extremely visual in my writing. That same article said, similarly
to be sparse with your descriptions of settings. Again, if that’s you’re
natural style, fine, I just won’t probably make it through the first chapter of
your book, personally, but don’t think that when these “serious” authors say
it’s the only way, that they have any idea what they’re talking about.

Remember that I’m something of a
sci-fi/fantasy author, myself, and that surely effects my viewpoint on this
topic. You could never spend the whole of a science-fiction or fantasy story
implying what the people and places looked like and come out with a
particularly striking piece. You don’t particularly enjoy reading a story that
takes place on multiple planets that you never actually get to see, unless that
supposed to be the point of the story. The antagonist in my
hopefully-soon-to-be-available sci-fi trilogy Stardrift, would not be nearly as effective if you didn’t know he
was seven feet tall with very fair skin, eerily pretty hands, and hair down to
the middle of his thigh.

If you don’t trust the examples of my own
writing, let’s look at a few others. Suppose Emily Bronte never told us what
Wuthering Heights, or Thrushcross Grange, or Heathcliff, or the moors looked
like. What if Ray Bradbury didn’t tell us how the hound looked in Fareinheight
451? What if James Barry didn’t describe Neverland, or Captain Hook? Success!!!
Yep.

Don’t think I advocate describing everything though. I can’t stand it when
authors start giving the reader a laundry list of all the…laundry a character
is wearing. Sometimes it really is
important how a character is dressed, but not always. Have you ever read any
Nancy Drew mysteries? Don’t do that. But there actually are reasons for
describingattire, it can be a great way
to “show and not tell” a character’s mood, or what they’re doing, or as a symbolic
element, if you do that kind of thing.